Bleach not Paint

They say that when you give your life to Christ, you are changed. You are a new creation. However, I was different. I was a bad kid and had made so many irreversible mistakes and bad choices that although I knew I was changed, it was as though I simply had a coat of paint to make me look better on the outside while on the inside, I knew I could never erase what I had done.

Rotten wood, no matter how beautiful when covered with a fresh new coat of paint, is still just as rotten and likely to crumble with the least bit of pressure or movement. With this worldly wisdom, I knew for sure that there was no good in me and no matter how many layers of paint you apply, nothing would change that. I may look better on the outside and can call myself a christian now, but if people only knew what was on the inside they would know the truth . . . that i am dangerous and rotting from the inside out regardless of what you can see.

But then there is another thought . . .the thought of bleach.

Turns out, I had it all wrong. No surprise there. God doesn’t simply apply layers of paint, He uses bleach. Bleach changes the look and composition of what it touches down to the very fiber. I am not simply an ugly and unsafe thing with a layer of paint. God has truly cleansed me through and through. Just as bleach eliminates bacteria and color- turning things to a sparkling, clean white. That is how God sees me because I have been cleansed through and through by the spilling of the blood of an innocent man and that is who I am!